After Dessert

Safeword

The fire of the rebellion had died down, the man reading the hologram screen concluded.

The pattern is always the same, he thought. Any uprising just wants someone or something to be sacrificed. A pebble to be skipped then swallowed by the depth of the lake, the ripples recessing.

Chihiro waved his hand to hide the floating projection away as his ears caught light steps approaching.

"Easy, isn't it? Stopping that stupid ambitious movement from those so-called Companions in the East," a drawling voice heard.

"I didn't expect those morons of the Council to follow my example when I conquered all of you, my now unworthy opponent." He bent down, staring at those brown irises he used to despise so much.

Used to.

Because in the end, he could never manage to gouge those pretty orbs out of his skull.

Yes, disgustingly, arrogantly, pretty.

The object of the stare planted his feet refusing to avert his eyes as if they were on the stare down match.

"It was staged. A libel to crush their brilliant safety net plan. How convenient it was to use paid actors, right? For someone called Frost Flower, the mockery must have been transparent," Chihiro snapped. Prattle co-founders were his friends, albeit in correspondence. He sympathised with their cause and offered advice via email.

"So what?" So what if it had been staged? Whatever happened outside The Dome was not Frost Flower's responsibility. "Not my universe, not my problem."

"Bring me the lunch." And with that finality in Frost Flower's tone, Chihiro sighed. He rose from his seat. From the corner of his eyes, one upward corner of that guy's lips could still be seen.

Chihiro didn't have a choice. He never had a say or thought when half a year ago presented with the fact that Frost Flower's department almost executed everyone from Chihiro's office upon seizing. He submitted, subjugated to Frost Flower's arrangement.

You can't save everyone, he remembered the words that came from the sadistic smile. The hidden advisor of the new police. Dispatching drones and choppers to kill people in faraway land didn't mean he wouldn't taint his hands with real blood when he got a chance.

Cursing silently at his bad luck, he walked upstairs, his hands gripping the edges of a tray. Upon it, there was only one plate hosting few cookies decorated with colourful icing and sprinkles.

Would he like it?

His inner thought caught him by surprise. Why would he even care? A few months of house arrest and limited mobility and now he was in doubt whether the captor liked his baking or not.

He didn't even talk to Frost Flower at all in the past few weeks, following that leak. Many safety net beneficiaries bought secondary or luxury items with the money, inviting critics across the Council board. Chihiro observed the progress in the confinement of his loneliness, wishing upon a star that his friends were not implicated.

But he knew that the man who put him here knew that the actual reason for their radio silence was not that.

The image of Frost Flower's tattoo was still imprinted in his mind, branded by the sheer abhorrence alone. A pair of carefully etched wings from black as charcoal ink spanned across his naked back. The highest tip of the spread treaded down from his left and right clavicle, tantalisingly licking his spine with the image of feathers, and converged at the dimple of his lower back.

A pure-blooded Immune according to the new police's definition.

A fallen angel, full of sins nevertheless, according to Chihiro.